OFFSTAGE: Ronnie Dunn Heard U2 in “Bleed Red”

(CMT Offstage keeps a 24/7 watch on everything that’s happening with country music artists behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.)

Ever so humble, Ronnie Dunn thinks maybe he wasn’t the best man to record his first solo hit, “Bleed Red.”
The song is a poignant anthem about how nobody’s perfect, but Dunn’s voice gives the ballad so much intensity and power. But when the song, written by Andrew Dorff and Tommy Lee James, was first pitched to Dunn, he thought it was too big for him. “When I heard the demo, just my initial reaction to it was, ‘U2 needs to get this. You know, stick another stamp on it and send it to Bono,’” he said recently in a radio interview. “It’s just cosmically broad; at the same time, it’s talking about forgiveness.” Personally, I don’t think Bono’s voice would’ve done this song justice. It belongs on country radio and it belongs to Dunn.